


She held his heart

by VanillaMostly



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Canon Compliant, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 06:41:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2057802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanillaMostly/pseuds/VanillaMostly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His children, one in particular, through Lord Rickard's eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She held his heart

**Author's Note:**

> "Lyarra" is kinda a silly name for Rickard's wife IMO but according to a family tree in A World of Ice and Fire (and GRRM I guess) that's what it is. Sigh.

 

Lyanna was his baby girl. How did she grow up so fast?

Old enough to wed, old enough to fall in love? Old enough to shoot Rickard a look that said, too plainly, _I hate you?_

After their fight, Rickard went to the godswood and prayed. Not just to the old gods, to watch over Lyanna and grant her happiness, but also to Lyarra, for guidance.

_If you were here, you might know what to do with our daughter._

Rickard imagined Lyarra’s smile, but try as he could, he could not imagine her answer.

 

Lyanna had been unplanned, unexpected. Rickard and Lyarra at that point, after two strapping sons, had not been trying for a third child. Lyarra had enough difficulty with Ned’s birth, so when she told Rickard she was pregnant, Rickard had been unsure. But the moment he brought up his concerns, Lyarra shot him the customary look of hers that was very demonstrative of her Flint heritage.

“I don’t care,” she said, in a tone Rickard would hear time and time again, years after Lyrarra’s passing, from his daughter. “I’m having this child.”

The birth had been another long one, Rickard refusing to leave the room, despite Maester Walys's efforts to convince him to do so. Brandon, already a heap of trouble waiting to happen at age five, managed to sneak in, probably dragging in Ned against his will. Brandon asked, “Is Mama going to die?” and Rickard had nearly shouted at his own son. His rage had always been quick to fire, something Lyarra had been working for years to temper.

This time it was no different. Lyarra, struggling with bringing a living person into the world, gathered the strength to pin Rickard with her Flint look and then say to Brandon, “Mama isn’t going anywhere, sweetling.”

Still, it was a relief when the maester took the children back outside. After that, it was more grueling wait interspersed with Lyarra’s shrieks.

After a full twenty-four hours, the babe was born. Another dark-haired, grey-eyed one, but a little different from the previous two.

“Our first girl,” said Lyarra, weak and exhausted but otherwise, Maester Walys had assured, fine.

Rickard himself felt like his head was going to split from lack of sleep and the toll of stress, but all of that went away when he looked down at his daughter. Cradling the delicate head in his rough, large hands, Rickard simply could not make a sound.

 

He was not prepared for a girl. What did he know about daughters? Sons were easy enough to understand, but daughters?

Lyarra just laughed. “Oh, dear, you’ll do alright.”

Rickard could only trust that his wife was right. Thankfully, as a baby Lyanna was not so different from her brothers. She was not as loud as Brandon had been but a deal feistier than quiet little Ned. She fed on Lyarra’s milk eagerly and was an altogether charming child, not one to easily cry. She stared at strangers with her large, grey eyes.

“She’s fearless, this one,” the lords of the north complimented.

Rickard could tell his bannermen’s heads were turning gears already, and it took a lot of self-control not to rise in anger. Lyanna was still a baby, and marriage was many years away. _For now,_ Rickard said to them silently, _she’s still mine._

 

Benjen Stark was born on a fresh spring morning. This time, the birth had been so easy, only a few hours long.

All the irony, then. Lyarra passed away two weeks later.

She had fallen into a fever after the birth and never recovered; an infection, Maester Walys had said, but Rickard was far from listening. What did it matter what took his wife? It wouldn’t change the fact that Lyarra was gone now, never coming back.

Rickard buried her in the family crypt and spent much of the following long days alone in the godswood.

In the midst of everything, Lyanna’s second birthday passed, forgotten. The little girl was too young to know of the slight, but Rickard knew and tried to make up for it by giving her as much love and attention as possible. Rickard didn’t know it then, but he was already, with Lyanna barely two years old, striving to fill up the hole his wife left behind with the presence of his daughter.

He was already working himself up for more heartache.

 

“Father, can’t I please have a sword too, like Brandon and Ned?”

Rickard smiled at Lyanna, pulling her onto his lap. “They’re boys, Lya, that’s why they have swords.”

“And girls can’t?”

Lyanna looked so indignant Rickard had to laugh. “You’re not just a girl, Lya. You’re a lady. Your lady mother never wielded a sword. She was a great harpist. Why don’t you take that up?”

“I’m _not_ my mother,” said Lyanna, sliding off his lap and running away.

Rickard watched her go, not quite understanding what had occurred.

 

Ned was coming back for a visit, his first since he had left for the Eyrie. Lyanna leapt onto her horse before Rickard could even utter a word. The older Lyanna got, the more apparent Brandon’s influence. Rickard had often thought about fostering _Lyanna_ somewhere—for ladies, that meant sending her to the royal court. Spending time with southron ladies might teach Lyanna a thing or two about manners, but Rickard must admit, his selfish reason for wanting to keep Lyanna by his side prevented him from ever sending any letters.

Unsurprisingly, Lyanna was the first to come back through the gates, laughing and cheering, “Ned, you can’t beat me!” Her cries could be heard reverberating throughout the keep.

“Father,” said Ned, bowing his head respectfully.

“Ned,” said Rickard, gripping his son in an embrace. “You’ve gotten taller.”

“Not that tall,” murmured Ned.

Rickard was proud of him, this serious, solemn son of his, already more of a man than a boy, though he was but thirteen. Rickard had his doubts at first about fostering, but he thought it would do Ned good, some time apart from his wilder older brother. Brandon meant well and Ned worshipped him, but there was no question that Ned would be constantly in his brother’s shadow, had he stayed at Winterfell all his youth.

That was when Rickard noted the stranger standing aside, a boy with broad shoulders and showing signs of a beard, though he seemed about Ned’s age. Sensing Rickard’s gaze, the boy raised his head and smiled. His smile was wide and a touch overconfident, but its warmth was genuine.

“Lord Rickard,” the boy said boldly, stepping forward, “Ned’s told me a lot about you.”

Rickard looked from Ned to this young man. He shook his head at himself. So he’d sent Ned away from Brandon to another Brandon. Well, Ned seemed to do well, nonetheless.

“Ned has written plenty of you, too,” said Rickard, offering a smile in return. “Welcome to Winterfell, Robert.”

 

Lyanna didn’t like needlework. Rickard could let that slide; the north wasn’t the south, after all. But Maester Walys said Lyanna paid little attention to her lessons. Only arithmetic and selective parts of history appealed to her interests, but even those couldn’t hold her for long. “She has trouble sitting still, my lord,” said Maester Walys.

Rickard had heard servants say, when they thought he wasn’t listening, that the little lady often played with Benjen in the godswood, using twigs for swords. When the two grew tired of playing swords, they sometimes went climbing trees like barefooted monkeys.

“Perhaps, if you don’t mind me saying, my lord, a new Lady of Winterfell might…”

“Thank you, Maester Walys,” interrupted Rickard.

Walys knew what a dismissal was and retreated.

Rickard sighed, leaning back in his chair. Maester Walys was right. Remarriage was not unreasonable. There were many good ladies of appropriate standing who would covet the chance. He was not too old for a second bride, and gods knew Lyanna could benefit from feminine teachings. Not to mention, Winterfell had gone long enough without a mistress.

Lyarra would want him to move on, want him to be happy. It had been, Rickard noted with a start, already eight years...

Brandon, it occurred to Rickard then, would be fifteen this year. Fifteen was not too young for a bride. It would be good for him to finally settle down, after all the talk Rickard had heard the servants say of Brandon and that rather indecent Ryswell girl.

Yes, this could work.

 

It was Maester Walys who recommended Hoster Tully’s firstborn, and the more Rickard heard, the more he liked this young lady. Like Lyanna, Catelyn Tully had lost her mother early on, but already at twelve she had become the unofficial Lady of Riverrun. Responsible, capable and disciplined, that was what they said of her. And a beauty to boot.

Rickard had fought alongside Hoster in the last war, and they were on amiable terms. Only a few letters back and forth, and the betrothal was settled.

Brandon accepted the news quietly, for the first time showing some of Ned’s compliance. Rickard looked at his son, standing there, doing the first part of his duty as future Lord of Winterfell. Rickard felt his heart twist in a strange way. Brandon, his oldest boy, was no longer a boy.

 

 _A few more years,_ thought Rickard. _Not yet. A few more years._

But Jon Arryn’s letter was in Rickard’s hand, and his friend’s carefully penned words spoke loud and clear. _We cannot wait, Rickard. It is dangerous to wait._

Rickard had hoped to keep Lyanna in the north. She was a northern lady through and through, ill-suited for the south. (No, Rickard had to admit to himself, none of that had much to do with it. He wanted Lya to be near him always, his baby girl, Lyarra and his only girl.)

At least this was Robert Baratheon, Ned’s friend who loved him as a brother. The boy loved Lyanna, too, Rickard could see from his eyes. Robert adored the very ground Lyanna walked on. Of course, it helped that Lyanna had flowered into a most lovely girl—which Rickard had only the gods to thank for—but Robert, on those occasions he visited, never seemed to mind Lyanna’s willfulness or her brash remarks. As a husband he would spoil Lyanna rotten, much as Rickard had done as a father.

Nevertheless, it took much of Jon’s urgings and Walys’s reminders of the growing threat in the south in the form of a mad king, that Rickard agreed.

Lyanna did not make the rest easier.

 

“Oh, Father, don’t make me. Please. Let me stay in Winterfell. Can’t you let me stay?”

“Lyanna,” he tried to tell her. _Don’t look at me like that. Please don’t._ “You know that’s not possible. You are a lady, and ladies must all leave one day to wed…”

“I don’t want to be a lady, then!”

Rickard was tired and heartbroken, and some of that worked itself into his old rage. “Stop acting like a child who can’t have her way. You’re four-and-ten, it’s time you showed some maturity. I have been too lenient with you for too long. Go, get out, I’ve had enough.”

She gave him that _look_ that froze Rickard to his bones, and took off. That night, Brandon brought her back, dripping wet from snow. Lyanna skipped dinner and would not let anyone in her room. Through the door Rickard could hear her muffled sobs.

That night, Rickard went to the godswood to pray.

 

The next day, Lyanna came to breakfast, calm and composed, no signs of having shed tears at all.

“Lyanna—”

“I know, Father. I’m sorry about last night,” she said, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek.

Rickard wanted to say _No,_ I’m _sorry. I love you, sweetling, you mean the world to me. You know that, don’t you?_

But he never could express tenderness clearly, like he could his rage ( _Oh, Arra, you would know_ ), so he only nodded instead.

After that Lyanna didn’t bring up the betrothal again, and neither did Rickard. Rickard, the coward that he was, would rather pretend no betrothal existed. For her part, Lyanna was back to her cheerful self. Rickard did not know why, but the sight of her going about laughing like nothing was wrong, hurt as much as the memory of her crying.

 

Rickard sent Lyanna to Harrenhal with her brothers because time was going too fast. Only a year left before Brandon’s marriage to Catelyn, and right after that would be Lyanna’s turn. He knew his daughter loved traveling, and all her life she had done little of it, because Rickard had stubbornly kept her close. Before her freedom truly ended with marriage, Rickard would relieve her of her chains, for this period while he still could.

 

She came back with a crown of blue roses. Brandon was angry, Ned was silent, and Robert was avoiding Lyanna. Benjen was nervous.

And Lyanna… She alone seemed the same.

( _Was she, though? Did I just not want to see?_ )

 

The last day Rickard saw his daughter (not that he knew this, then), Lyanna was singing. He had never heard her sing before. Her voice was thin and soft, so unlike the loudness of her speaking voice. Rickard stayed where he was, not wanting to startle her. He closed his eyes and heard Lyarra.

Only Lyarra had never sung such a sad song.

 

There had not been a note, only a single blue rose, left on the table in his solar.

 

The search party returned with no Lyanna, but a raven.

"The king has Brandon, my lord.”

 

Rickard rode his horse south, with sweet, brave Ben sending him off. “Take care of Winterfell, son,” Rickard had told him, and Benjen had replied, hiding his anxiousness well, “Yes, Father, I will.”

Benjen, not yet fifteen, was a man grown today. All of Rickard’s children seemed to grow up overnight.

Rickard rode south, committing Winterfell to his memory, the north to his heart. He was an old man, and an old man knew when he might not see home again.

 

The last thing Lord Rickard thought of was this: the blue rose, wilting, petals dry. A sad song. His wife’s smile.

_I tried my best, Arra, but it wasn’t enough._

_Oh, dear,_ he thought he heard her say, _you did alright._

 


End file.
